Over the past couple of days, Instagram feeds have been taken over by black and white pictures of women. This is the ‘Black and White Challenge,’ a global trend that's now reached India and was seemingly started as a way for women to show their support to other women.
Nobody is sure how the trend began, but according to reports, the trend was seen soon after US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke up against the behaviour of fellow Representative Ted Yoho, who accosted her on the steps leading to the Capitol and made sexist remarks against her. Alexandria’s speech in the House where she spoke up of his behaviour may have sparked the trend.
Almost all posts have the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted, and #WomenSupportingWomen. The hashtag #ChallengeAccepted has been used over 30 lakh times at the time of writing, while #WomenSupportingWomen has over 60 lakh posts. Most captions in these posts contain the hashtags and a small message for women, and nominating other women to also post monochrome pictures of themselves. The trend is that someone has to nominate you first, but there is no hard and fast rule.
Several international and Indian celebrities have taken part in the challenge, including Khloe Kardashian, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, Jennifer Aniston, Shilpa Shetty, Karishma Kapoor, Jahnvi Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan, Dia Mirza, Samantha Akkineni, and Parvathy have all shared black and white pictures of themselves.
Here are a few pictures:
This is the latest in the string of social media ‘challenges’ that have gone viral in the past. A more recent one saw social media feeds being taken over by ‘black boxes’, as users uploaded a single black box to express solidarity with the protests in the USA over the killing of George Floyd. While experts say such challenges don’t really show on-ground change, it can be seen as a good way to spread awareness and express feelings.